Antonio Resines

Antonio Resines is probably the actor we most associate with the country air and the “Hispanic” character, rude but with a good heart, the representation of the Cañí Spain that Alfredo Landa championed in other times . He is the one-piece Spaniard, who calls bread bread and wine wine, who does not go around with great mental lucubrations but rather goes straight to the heart of the matter, without thinking much and without taking into account the consequences. And he also pontificates. This was one of his most famous comic characters, Diego de Los Serrano , father of a very peculiar family that spent six seasons on television and made him very famous in Spanish houses during the 2000s, along with Belen Rueda .

Antonio Fernández Resines was born in Torrelavega, Cantabria, on August 7, 1954. He is the second of five siblings, the son of José Ramón, a lawyer, and Amalia, a housewife. He went to Madrid to study Information Sciences at the Complutense University. In college he met Carlos Boyero and Fernando Trueba , and thanks to that friendship, in 1980 the opportunity arose to participate in the director’s first film, Ópera Prima .

Two years after his debut in front of the cameras, he was part of the large cast of legendary Spanish actors in La colmena , a Mario Camus film based on the novel by Camilo José Cela . However, comedy was his thing, and he demonstrated it in 1984 in light films such as Sal gorda or La línea del cielo , by Trueba and Fernando Colomo respectively. He returned to work the following year with his old classmate on Be unfaithful and don’t look with whom . The film, a fast-paced sitcom with infidelity as its main theme, was a huge success and the Resines name became very popular. Jose Luis GarciaBerlanga signed him for one of his latest films, Moors and Christians , where he ended his collaboration with screenwriter Rafael Azcona after more than 25 years.

With the prologue of the surreal Amanece que no es poco , an unclassifiable comedy by José Luis Cuerda , between the grotesque and the funniest madness, the 90s was the decade that definitively catapulted Resines’ career. She accompanied Carmen Maura in How to be a woman and not die trying , an adaptation of a highly successful book in Spain written by Carmen Rico -Godoy. And, despite the discreet end result, he was priceless in La marrana , again directed by Cuerda, where he formed a fun and very folkloric tandem with the ineffable Alfredo Landa. In 1993, she starred in the debut of the man who would become president of the Spanish Film Academy, Álex de la Iglesia., and although it is true that Mutant Action  is a strange, dandy, cheap and seedy film, the truth is that it also caused laughter with such rarity. She saw success again the following year with another comedy of hers, All men are the same , directed by Manuel Gómez Pereira . Among other awards, the film won the Goya for best screenplay.

In 1997, Antonio Resines especially proved himself as an actor in two serious films, full-fledged dramas. Unforgettable is his role as Rafael –perhaps the best of his entire career–, a good man, sexually traumatized, in the harsh La buena estrella , by Ricardo Franco . Resines deservedly won the Goya and the Medal of the Circle of Cinematographic Writers for best actor. The second film is Highways , a Spanish-style “road movie” starring a father and his son. The following year he shoots with his beloved Trueba another successful film, The Apple of Your Eyes , but then returns to demonstrate his talent for drama with the social film Ask the King for an account(1999), about the trip of an unemployed miner to the capital.

In the 2000s, Resines has combined dramas such as Other days will come (2006), with the silly Hispanic comedy – The Greatest Robbery Ever Told (2002), Two Tough Guys (2003), Moscow Gold (2003)– and with surprising thrillers as the protagonist, such as X and above all the more than successful La caja 507 and Celda 211 , directed respectively by Enrique Urbizu and Daniel Monzón , two filmmakers with a great narrative pulse.